Patrick Dempsey and Tom Danielson Want to Ride With You

On January 20, actor Patrick Dempsey and Garmin-Sharp cyclist Tom Danielson are hosting a cycling event in Arizona called Ride On, Tucson! The ride will feature a 2.5-mile downtown circuit that is completely closed to traffic for three hours; participants can choose their own pace and number of laps. There’s no registration form or entry fee—just show up with your bike and helmet and be prepared to have some fun.

Bicycling spoke with Danielson and Dempsey earlier this week to find out how their cycling friendship was born, and what will make this event like no other.

Bicycling: This ride sounds different from Gran Fondos and other organized rides.

Patrick Dempsey: It's an alternative to the gran fondos and other rides that are mostly for experienced riders. This is an opportunity to do a group ride and bring everyone in—from kids to older people who don’t usually ride. It’s something really for the whole community. Hopefully it’s the first of many in other cities.

Tom Danielson: We’re trying to lower the barriers to entry, but not only the cost. For a gran fondo there’s a distance and competitive element that may scare people away. With this ride, there’s no real distance. Anyone can complete one lap or half a lap. And they can take as long as they need.

People with bike-handling skills, they’re going to have fun too. On gran fondos, you usually have a lot of straight sections, but we’ve included all these corners. You’ll be able to whip around all these city roads without having to stop at lights or stop signs.

We’ll be cruising around and talking to everyone. This is something that both Patrick and I really feed off of and love. It’s so great to meet people and hear their stories. We really hope to be able to go around and interview people and get their take on why they’re there and how cycling has changed their lives. We want to create a movement that will bridge the gap between pro cycling and people riding a bike for the first time, and expand the definition of what riding a bike is.

How did you meet? And how did this idea come about?

Dempsey: Tom came to the Dempsey Challenge a couple of years ago. Then he came to California to train and he ended up staying at my house. He is one of the greatest people, and he is so passionate about promoting the sport. Even on the rides, he stops and talks to people all the time.

Danielson: Patrick and I really connected the first time after his charity event. We saw how passionate we both are about the community angle—the interaction between people, and how it inspires people to get out and make a lifestyle change.

Our first idea was a bike camp. We did that, and then we thought, in a bike camp, we can talk to only 16 people. What if we included the whole community? It’s cool to think it just came up on a bike ride in Malibu.

Do you remember that ride?

Danielson: Yeah. I ran into the back of a parked car on that ride [laughs]. We were doing an out and back on the PCH [Pacific Coast Highway], where the surfers park their cars on the side of the road. My Garmin stopped working, and I was looking down, trying to calibrate it, and I ran into the back of a parked car. I was so embarrassed because it was one of the first rides I went on with Patrick. He noticed I was gone and came back. I thought about telling him I’d dropped my chain, but I was covered in blood and black marks from the road.

Why did you decide to start in Tucson?

Danielson: Three reasons. Number one, the cycling community is fantastic. We have a lot of people helping us. Richard DeBernardis, who promotes the Tour de Tucson, helped us get the thing up and rolling. Number two, I have been riding here for 11 years, but I hadn’t done anything to give back. I figured we could show the country and world what a great place Tucson is to ride. And third, Patrick’s career. His first movie was Can’t Buy Me Love, and the opening scene is on a bike in Tucson. So it all came together.

Dempsey: The infrastructure and the bike paths around the city are great. The local community has to be supportive in order for the cycling community to grow. They’ve had a lot of support from local businesses and government.

The ride is put on by an organization the two of you formed, T20 Cycling. We hear there's a story behind the name…

Dempsey: Yeah [Laughs]. Most people do 20/40s, where you ride 20 seconds hard and then recover for 40. I was doing 20/20s by accident.

Danielson: Patrick did a and said I’d been having him do 20/20s.

Dempsey: Everybody said, “Man, you guys are really training hard!” It all came out of my lack of experience.

Danielson: People were sending messages to me saying, “What’s the 20/20?” I said, “Patrick, you screwed this up.” He said, “Let’s just go with it.” In his next interview, he told everyone we were doing 20/20s. He said, “That’s how Tom won the Aspen stage of the USA Pro Challenge.” It was hilarious. So the name came out of how Patrick and I see cycling. We like to work hard, but we have fun doing it.

Patrick, you’ve gotten your wife (a runner) and kids (Talula, age 10, and 5-year-old twins Sullivan and Darby) into cycling. What are your best tips for getting kids hooked?

Dempsey: You’ve got to keep them active. There are so many ways to get distracted. Which is another reason to have this ride—to get kids involved.

Danielson: The kids are going to lead us out on the first lap. We’ll have TV-camera motorcycles, police motorcycles. Announcer Dave Towle, who does the USA Pro Challenge, will be commentating. It’s always been a dream of mine to share what I’ve experienced as a professional cyclist. Hopefully we’ll give some kids goose bumps and an experience they’ll never forget, and get them hooked on cycling. My goal is to make kids say, “I want to come home from school and ride my bike.”

For kids who don’t want to go on the big course, Strider will be there with their Adventure Zone. And the children’s museum will be open for free.

Where will you go next?

Danielson: The first step is to target cities that already have established infrastructure and communities, to get people excited to participate in their own cycling community, maybe one that they didn’t realize existed. Or if they’re in a city that is interested in becoming more bike-friendly, we want to make it easier for advocates there to start transforming their communities. There are so many groups out there doing a great job at getting people on bikes—everything from giving bikes to kids to sponsoring pro teams. We hope our ride unifies these different groups.

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